The Serenity Fare Maiden: Nutella Swirl Cupcakes

Nutella. One of the many loves in my life. Darn you and all of your calories! Alright so obviously I am a fan of Nutella but it sits in my pantry torturing me and taunting me..you know you'd like to eat me, just pretend I'm not a million calories, I won't tell anyone...haha so I figured that there had to be a way that I could use it without giving myself a diabetic coma. After thinking long and hard I figured why not just incorporate a little into some vanilla cupcakes and whip up a light Nutella Buttercream Frosting? So that's precisely what I did!

I will tell you that I cheated and used a boxed mix for the vanilla cupcakes - I know, FAIL. But they were so easy and scrumptious that I just couldn't resist. Plus the commissary had vanilla cake mix on sale for $0.29/box - so I might have accidentally purchased 5 boxes without really thinking that through oops. So this was a perfect use for a box!

Ingredients:
Cupcakes
1 box of vanilla cake mix - any brand - prepared and placed into cupcake pans
Nutella (you probably only need 1/8th of a jar)
5 Toothpicks

Nutella Buttercream Frosting

1/4 stick of salted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners sugar (or more to taste)
1/2 to 1/3 cup whole milk or half-and-half (depending how thick you like your frosting)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large tbsp of Nutella (or more to taste), softened

Directions:
For the cupcakes: Simply prepare the vanilla cupcake mix according to the directions on the box and place into 24 cupcake liners/pans. Try to only fill the cupcake liners/pans 1/2 to 2/3 max! Then, I took 2 of Charli's baby spoons and placed a tiny dollop onto each battered liner. (If you don't have baby spoons just lying around as I suspect most of you wont lol just use a 1/2 of a teaspoon of Nutella for each.) If the Nutella is softened it will be easier to swirl so make sure it's room temperature - in fact if you lightly whip it with a knife before you start it will be much more pliable. Ok, so once you have a tiny dollop in each liner/pan take a toothpick and begin to swirl. This is the fun part and honestly you can't mess it up - there's no right way to do it! So have fun, swirl away lol. (*Also, I say have 5 toothpicks because after a while the Nutella begins to stick to itself and your toothpick will become a glob of Nutella that, well, just won't swirl more as clump lol so feel free to toss the toothpick after a few cupcakes are swirled.) Once the cupcakes are all swirled to your liking you can bake them according to the directions on your cupcake box. After they are done baking, place them on a cooling rack so that they can properly cool and breathe.

Once your cupcakes are cooled you can begin to prepare the frosting. It's really simple. Just combine the frosting ingredients listed above and whisk to your delight. If you find it too tough to whisk just add a little more milk slowly until it matched the consistency you like. You can pipe the frosting on or just spread it on with a knife, either one works. And it is outrageously yummy. I promise!!! Try not to eat 7 of them I dare you!

Pictures: